Donald Paul Pinkel (September 7, 1926 – March 9, 2022) was an American physician who specialized in pediatric hematology and oncology.

As part of the V-12 Navy College Training Program, he studied at Cornell University, where he became interested in biology and medicine.

As his condition improved, he began working with researcher Sidney Farber in Boston, experimenting with the impact of aminopterin on leukemia.

[7] Pinkel was named chief of pediatrics at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo in 1956.

The latter was spearheading the foundation and construction of a children's research hospital, called after St Jude, the patron of the hopeless, to be based in Memphis, Tennessee.

Pinkel visited the budding project in 1961, and decided to become a founding member, taking a significant pay reduction to make the move.

Increases in resources and trained physicians and nurses, better infection control, safer blood transfusion and newer drugs and drug schedules have increased the reported cure rates to 75–85% of treated children with ALL in developed countries.

Better use of drugs both systemically and by instillation into the spinal fluid have replaced the need for radiation therapy to pre-empt meningeal relapse in most children with ALL.

He subsequently taught as an adjunct professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.